There’s a little dust on the dialogue in “Leah, the Forsaken,” but a rare revival by the Metropolitan Playhouse shines up this 1862 play just fine.

Set in an Austrian village in the early 1700s, the story centers on Rudolf (Jon Berry), the son of the town’s magistrate, who has fallen in love with Leah (Regina Gibson), who is traveling through the country. Because she is a Jew, the law prevents her from settling in that land, and before you can say “immigrant play with parallels to our current political climate,” the locals rile one another by trading in stereotypes and hearsay, leading to tense confrontations.

There’s a whiff of “Romeo and Juliet,” as well as moments that feel like precursors to “The Crucible,” as wild rumors and a scheming schoolmaster (Jeffrey Grover) threaten to enrage and blind the townspeople. To be sure, Augustin Daly, the playwright, was generous with the melodrama: Characters deliver expositional soliloquies, and emotions run deep and syrupy. But Daly threw in a few ideas about tolerance, too, raising this story a notch above other stage works of his era.

With a cast of 15, Francis X. Kuhn, the director, has his job cut out for him on the small Metropolitan stage. He manages well. Though a few of his actors overemote, that’s not exactly a sin with this type of script, which preferred to holler its message rather than hint at it, to large audiences who expected nothing less.

Mr. Berry and Ms. Gibson hold the stage with skill, while Noelia Antweiler, as Madalena, another woman in love with Rudolf, is a standout in the script’s most varied role. Joe Candelora and John Ingle are lively in supporting parts.

“Leah, the Forsaken” won’t be mistaken for a long-lost classic. But it is a thought-provoking discovery, presented by a first-rate troupe. It also provides a window into how theater has changed, and how human nature has, in some ways, remained so stubbornly foolish.